Modern firearms and other weapons are often equipped with various accessories. For some accessories selective use is desired, which led to the earlier development of quick release mounting systems, for example, quick release accessory mounts compatible with a rail system such as MIL-STD-1913, also known as the Picatinny rail.
In some cases even more immediate selective use of an accessory is desired, for example depending on the immediate threat or other shot that presents itself, which does not lend itself to quickly mounting or releasing a particular accessory. To meet this need, various pivoting mounts for accessories have been developed that allow an accessory to be locked in a use position, and unlocked for pivoting to a non-use, storage position. Unlocking, pivoting, and relocking the accessory between the storage and the use position is generally quicker than the time required to mount an accessory to a rail system.
Accessories include for example, but are not limited to, hand-grips, illuminators, including conventional lights and lasers, and sights or sighting systems, including optical devices such as scopes, electro-optics, and magnifiers for use with another optical sight.
For firearms in particular, pivoting mounts are most often used with an optical accessory. For example, a magnifier or scope is generally preferred for a longer range shots, but an iron sight may be preferred for a shorter range shot. A pivoting mount for the magnifier or scope thus provides an advantage of very quickly pivoting the optical device into or out of the use position. For example, for an optical device, the use position is generally above the receiver and/or barrel and the non-use storage position is to the side of the receiver and/or barrel, providing a clear line of sight for an iron or other sighting device.
Existing pivoting mounts provide a quicker action between use and non-use than mounting and dismounting an accessory using a quick release rail or other system mounting system; however, existing pivoting mounts generally require actuation of a locking, unlocking, or other manual actuator before and/or after pivoting the device mount, a step or steps that can delay or otherwise encumber rapid pivoting reconfiguration of the accessory for the firearm or other weapon. As such, it was realized by the inventors of the current disclosure that improvements are needed to existing mounting devices for weapons.
For this disclosure a weapon is defined as any projectile firing device and any directed-energy device used as a weapon (e.g. highly focused to damage a target), including but not limited to firearms, compressed air guns, spring guns, bows, crossbows, laser arms, microwave emitting arms, and particle beam emitting arms.